Princess
by OceanFire9
Summary: All things have beginnings. A Wraith female is not simply born with a crown on her head, someone older and wiser must teach her as she grows - how to be a queen. This fic is dedicated to my mom.
1. Prologue: Beginnings

Summary: All things have beginnings. A Wraith female is not simply born with a crown on her head, someone older and wiser must teach her as she grows - how to be a queen. This fic is dedicated to my mom.

Disclaimer: Agh, don't you just hate these things? *groan* Okay, here goes. *deep breath* I DO NOT OWN STARGATE, SG-1, SGA, the Wraith, Wraith culture, the Pegasus Galaxy, the Lanteans, Atlantis, or a fleet of Hive ships. Nada es mio, comprende? Great. Now read and enjoy.

* * *

A soft hiss to catch my attention, and I turn my head to look at her, my sharp little teeth baring into a broad smile. She beckons to me with her mind, and obediently I toddle up to her where she sits on her throne. I bap my little hands against her knee, reach up my arms with an eager, squeaking hiss, and she smiles as she lifts me onto her lap.

I grasp for the crystal pendant that she wears. I cannot help it, I like crystalline things, they fascinate me, but a gentle snarl from her moves me to halt what I am doing. I look up into her eyes, unsure, but then the smile returns to her face, and I know that all is well. She holds me gently, tenderly, her look and her mind praising me. She likes me best, I know. I haven't any notion why, or even a care to wonder at it, but it's enough for me to know that it is true. I adore her. She's wonderful. Her scent washes over the nerve receptors of the sensory pits on my cheeks, a mixture of something caustic and something sweet on the air - biting, but also soft and inviting. Her eyes hold mine, deep-set and glittering golden-green, reflecting my own wide orbs, slitted pupils set in irises of dark blue. Her long, brunnish-black hair glistens and swirls over her gowned shoulder as she turns her head, and I look to where she looks. Someone approaches.

It is the Commander, I can hear him. I know it is he because he steps with a confidence that none of the others possess. He stops just short of the room, and addresses her with low, growling tones. She beckons to him with an imperious hiss, but her mind is soft to him. He comes right up to us, a smile playing about the edges of his mouth, and he tucks one of my wispy blonde curls behind my ear with one gentle, clawed finger. I look up at him with one of my fingers in my mouth, wide-eyed and curious. His smile broadens and he tilts his head, regarding me, his white, tousled locks brushing across his leather-clad shoulders. He likes me, which is fine, because I like him, too. But we both like _her_ best. He turns to her and speaks softly, a question in his multi-toned voice. She holds me closer and I return the gesture happily, my little arms wrapping around her fair neck. She speaks to him with pride in her symphonic voice, and I know in a few seconds without much effort into their minds that they are talking about me - I respond to this with a rattling bark of a hiss, wide open smile on my little face. They laugh, amused, and she looks back to him with shining eyes and a soft smile on her face, which he returns. After a while he addresses her again, and with a slight bow of his head turns to leave. I reach one arm out after him, the other still curled around the neck of the matriarch, and whine. He stops, looks over his shoulder with a slight, lopsided smile, and then continues his retreat. I whine louder.

She gives a low, drawn-out hiss directed at me, her mind and her voice commanding me to be soothed, and I hush as she strokes one elegant finger down the side of my chubby little cheek. I look up into her face, pale and fairest shade of luminescent green, so lovely. I reach up with one hand to touch her cheek, it connects with a light _bap,_ and she smiles, slitted eyes twinkling. She catches my outstretched hand and brings it to her mouth, nipping it playfully, which causes me to squeak and then giggle. Still smiling, she traces a finger down the center of my tiny palm, along the raised line of cells that will one day open and mature into a feeding slit of my own. She then offers me the hand with her feeding slit in it, which I promptly take and make a razzing sound against. She laughs heartily and grins with amusement, and I smile and give another barking hiss. It makes me happy when she is pleased.

"And it will not be too long, my little pretty one," she tells me, the sound of her harmonic voice filling the room as I make a final, futile grab for her crystal necklace, "when you shall give me all the more reason to be _very_ proud, and _very_ pleased indeed."

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A/N - I took my inspiration from the Keeper from "Rising (Part 2)" (SGA season 1, episode 2) for the older queen - only the color of her hair and some of her gowns are different. P.S. I don't own the Keeper but she _is_ the coolest wraith queen _EVER!_

**Just to be clear, this fic is slated to be a three-shot. **

Other Note: For those curious as to how I get away with this fic's whole premise, I've known for sometime that hive insects (bees, ants, others) generally have two very different ways of reproducing. One way creates the general worker caste and drones (androgens & males), and there is another specific process for the creation of successive queens - which is how they keep such a thing under control and don't end up having two or more queens to a hive and whathaveyou. Using this general trait of hive creatures is my basis for the defining feature of this fic, but also with a little more of a human element thrown in, since - as you know - Wraith did also originate from humans.


	2. Maturity

Usual Disclaimer: Don't own it; don't sue me.

A/N - For those who might have been a bit confused by the interaction in the last chapter, consider how in all SGA episodes with Wraith queens, that they generally tend to treat each other more respectfully - even socially - as opposed to how they regard other Wraith; and if you're going to have progeny that you can be proud of, (as opposed to "oh god, I spawned THAT idiot?" *facepalm*) you'd want her to respect you, be loyal to you, an ally, and a decent successor in the event that you should get impaled with a stunner by John Sheppard. ;) So there you have it. Enjoy! P.S. Yes, the beforementioned Commander is Todd, _way_ long before the Lantean war with the Wraith.

* * *

I look the shivering girl in the eyes, wide and brown, and full of terror, barely able to stand straight from all her shaking. I don't want to do this. I really don't. The matriarch sits behind me on her throne, relaxed and regal as always.

"Do it," she tells me gently.

The girl is looking at me as though she's never seen anything like me before, as though she had just woken from a nightmare only to find to her horror that it was all real. She swallows hard, her chest rising and falling noticeably beneath her worshipper's tunic, trying and failing to calm herself with deep breaths. Her dread and fear makes the atmosphere in the room stink with the thickness of it. I really don't want to do this.

_"Do_ it," the matriarch orders, more firmly.

"No," I say softly. "Let it be someone else. Perhaps one of the cocoons-"

_"No,"_ she growls, interrupting me. "It _will_ be this one."

"But I know her!" I protest. "She conducts herself admirably, and she is liked among the other worshippers. What has she done?"

The matriarch holds her head with her chin up, and says softly, plainly, "Nothing. Nothing at all."

"Then why are you punishing me this way?" I inquire, in a similarly soft tone.

"Punishing you?" The matriarch rises and comes to stand beside me. "It is not _I_ that punish you, my dear. There are facts of our very existence that punish us _all._ And this-" she reaches down to take my hand and turns it palm-up, the recently developed feeding slit in the center of it slightly parted, showing starkly against the rest of my pale hand, "-is one of them... This thing that defines us as the dominant race of the galaxy." She releases my hand. "And it is something that you will not fully understand until you do this." She looks into my mind, searching for any further resistance to knock down with her reasons. "Yes, it must be _this_ one for your first time, not one of the cocoons." Her green-gold eyes hold mine, twins of hers in every way; her tone is softer when she speaks next, "You can trust me when I tell you that you will not come to understand otherwise."

I plead with her silently, with my eyes and my mind, but she is adamant, and there is no getting around it. I really do not want to do this.

_But you will,_ her voice fills my mind, her eyes harden. _DO it._

I turn and step slowly towards the girl, and with each step her shaking intensifies, eyes growing wider and wider, until silent, shuddering tears stream down her cheeks. Such a pity, I sigh. I shut everything else out and focus on the hunger that's been steadily blooming since the slit in my hand began to open and develop into what it is now, barbs along the open inner lining glistening in the light of the hive. It is a most uncomfortable thing, like being badly overheated, but focused into the core of me, and sharper, carving into my insides like nothing I've ever known or imagined in my life. Strange, how all the inevitable things in life are never really quite as you had expected them to be, never something you're truly prepared for. I feel a curling, hot twinge in my insides and I growl.

The girl utters a gasping sob as I suddenly grip her shoulder and yank her forward onto her knees. My hand is poised and ready, and I give a rattling hiss. I turn to look at the matriarch one last time. She nods solemnly. I turn back to the girl and slam my open hand into her chest near her heart, barbs catching her flesh, enzyme releasing into her blood, and I feed deeply for the very first time in my life, as her life begins flowing into me.

The sensation is... unimaginably exquisite. I had surmised from observation that the experience would be enjoyable, but this is nothing short of _truly_ amazing. I can feel every cell in my body come tingling into brilliant life; every sound, every scent, and every snatch of light, color, and shadow coming sharply into focus like I have never perceived before. I feel _so_ energized, like I can do anything. The burning inside me dies away with a feeling that is more refreshing than a splash of cool water, and I let out a long, draw-out hiss of pleasure.

_Fan-__**tas**__-tic..._ Did I say that out loud?

I am aware of the girl under my hand screaming, then gasping, and then... nothing. I remove my hand from what's left of what _was_ the girl worshipper. Her blood trickles through my fingers and from my feeding slit, which is now closing. I look long at that slit in my hand, and then at the shriveled remains of the girl. I cannot help the sigh that escapes me. Pity. I would have much rather that the girl had lived - she was useful, entertaining, even. Even so, for the first time in my existence, I know how it feels now to be truly _alive!_ Every part of me feels so wonderfully charged with life! ... The life that had been hers.

And then it hits me.

I whirl around to face the matriarch. She gives me another solemn nod, and she knows what my mind has come realize. Life comes at a cost, and there will be times when that expense will be felt more than others. This is something that I would not have understood otherwise, had it been some worthless human in the cocoons that served no other use than to be fodder. She was right, I do understand now.

"And now you know," she tells me softly, breaking the silence.

There's something in her voice that tells me more than perhaps she had intended. I sense it there, clearly, in her mind. This was only the beginning for me. There will be many, more _difficult_ sacrifices and hard decisions that I will have to make, for myself and my hive, if we are to live... Just as she has done for herself and her own.

"You are not a child anymore," she says, as she steps towards me and gently tucks a stray plait of my long blonde hair back into place. With a smile on her face, she puts one elegant, clawed hand under my chin and tilts my face so that I look up into her glittering eyes. "I am proud of you."

* * *

A/N - Definitely not as fuzzy as the last chapter, but hey, they're Wraith, it's what they do. Right now the extent of the loss our Princess is feeling over the worshipper she's just fed on is about the same as you would feel if you had to "put down" your pet hamster. It's a pity, but it's no huge thing.

By the way, the Muse commands that I make this go longer than a three-shot, so stick around! ;)


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